Nebraska

Known as the Cornhusker State, Nebraska is covered mostly by plains and
prairies and sits atop the Ogallala Aquifer. The Missouri River separates
Nebraska from Iowa and Missouri and flows along the eastern third of the
border with South Dakota. Major rivers flowing west to east include the
Niobrara, the Platte, and the Republican Rivers. The largest lakes are reservoirs
including Lewis and Clark Lake, Harlan County Lake, and Lake McConaughy.
With 11,000 miles of rivers and hundreds of lakes, less than 1% of Nebraska
(480 square miles) is covered by water.

What is Nebraska’s maritime heritage?

People have lived in Nebraska for thousands of years. The earliest people
specialized in big-game hunting while later people had a more diverse hunting
and gathering lifestyle and used resources along lakeshores and streams.
About 1,000 years ago, some people started farming along the river banks
and living on the bluffs. Most people moved north during a period of drought
beginning about 600 years ago, and new groups moved in when the drought
ended. Indian groups historically associated with Nebraska were there by
the 1600s and 1700s.

In the 1700s, France and Spain vied for control of the Central Plains and
the Missouri River valley. Etienne Veniard de Bourgmont is thought to be
the first European to enter Nebraska when he accompanied a group of Missouria
Indians up the Missouri River in 1714. Pedro de Villasur led an ill-fated
expedition massacred by Pawnee Indians at the forks of the Platte River
in 1720. Paul and Pierre-Antone Mallet with companions crossed Nebraska
along the Missouri and Platte Rivers to open a trade route with the Spanish
1739. James MacKay, a fur trader working for a Spanish company, was in the
Niobrara River valley in 1795-96.

Excavating the steamboat Bertrand in 1968 more than 100 years after it
sank in the Missouri River. (FWS photo)

The United States acquired Nebraska as part of the Louisiana Purchase in
1803. In the decades that followed, scientific expeditions like the ones
led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (1803-1806), Zebulon Pike (1806),
Henry Atkinson (1819), Stephen Long (1820), and Benjamin Bonneville (1832)
explored the area. Competing fur companies set up trading posts at Fort
Lisa (1812), Cabanne’s Trading Post (1822), Pilcher’s Post (1822),
and Fontenelle’s Post (1828), and the U.S. Army established the first
fort west of the Missouri River at Fort Atkinson (1819).

Flat-bottomed mackinaws and small draft bullboats and canoes were used
by trappers and traders to navigate Nebraska’s shallow rivers, traveling
downstream in the spring when the water was higher but running aground frequently
and left abandoned sometimes because of low water. The first steamboat to
travel up the Missouri River was the Western Engineer on the Yellowstone
Expedition in 1819.

An estimated 400,000 people passed through Nebraska between the 1830s and
1860s on their way west on the Oregon Trail, the California Trail, and the
Mormon Trail. Sarpy’s Ferry (1846), the Lone Tree Ferry (1850), the
Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry Company (1853), and numerous others carried
travelers across Nebraska’s rivers. In 1848, the U.S. Army established
Fort Kearny along the Great Platte River Road as a way station, sentinel
post, supply depot, and message center for emigrants. Ferry service became
obsolete and the fort was dismantled after completion of the transcontinental
railroad.

What sites are underwater?

Looking toward the Nebraska shore at the remains of the steamer North
Alabama that snagged and sank on the Missouri River in 1870. (NPS
photo)

The Missouri River was the primary transportation highway between St. Louis,
Missouri, and Fort Benton, Montana, until the railroads came west. Of the
thousands of riverboats that passed through Nebraska, many of them wrecked
due to constantly shifting and braided channels, sandbars, snags, and rocks.
Other boats were lost to heaving ice, explosions, and fires.

One unfortunate steamboat was the Bertrand that sank north of
Omaha on its way to the Montana goldfields in 1865. The river channel shifted
so much in the next 100 years that the site no longer was underwater but,
instead, became buried on dry land when it was discovered and excavated.
Artifacts recovered from the site are preserved for visitors to see at the
DeSoto National
Wildlife Refuge.

Some other riverboats lost along the Nebraska shore of the Missouri River
include the Ontario sunk in 1866; the Amanda burned in
1867; the Bridgeport, the Carrie, and the Lillie
all sunk in 1868; the Dalles and the North Alabama sunk
in 1870; the Edgar sunk in 1884; and the Andrew S. Bennett
sunk by ice in 1888.

Who takes care of Nebraska's underwater archeological sites?

The Nebraska
State Historical Society has overall responsibility for the state’s
archeological sites. The Society accomplishes much of this work through
its Archeology Division and State Historic Preservation Office.

The Archeology Division is responsible for preserving, enhancing, exploring,
and interpreting the state’s prehistoric and historic sites. The Division
collects and maintains a database of information about archeological projects
conducted in the state and sites discovered, and manages the state’s
collections of archeological artifacts and records.

The State Historic Preservation Office has a separate archeology program
that is responsible for surveying, identifying, recording, and evaluating
archeological sites throughout the state. The archeology program cooperates
with the Society’s Archeology Division in maintaining the Master Archeological
Site Survey records.

The Society cooperates with the Nebraska
Department of Roads in carrying out a program of survey and salvage
when archeological, paleontological, and historical remains may be disturbed
by highway construction. The Society works with the Nebraska
Game and Parks Commission to investigate and preserve archeological
sites in areas under the Commission’s jurisdiction.

What permits do I need to study shipwrecks?

You need written permission from the Nebraska State Historical Society’s
Archeology Division to conduct activities affecting archeological sites
on state lands in Nebraska.

What laws concern underwater archeology in Nebraska?

Nebraska’s laws about State Culture and History are set forth in
Chapter 82 of the Nebraska
Revised Statutes. The Nebraska Archaeological Resources Preservation
Act is codified in Sections 82-501 to 82-510. Related laws about the Nebraska
State Historical Society are in Sections 82-101 to 82-132.